Save the Children

I used to spend quite a lot of time talking about the different aspects of waste, when I was in school-- caring for our environment sustainability, litter, landfill, greed, packaging--- the topic can be vast and wide ranging. Photos of children scavenging over rubbish dumps in developing countries always got a reaction from my pupils, as did the follow- up explanation!

And then I would show them my Owl, which peers down at me from her perch on a shelf in my kitchen. Was the wire netting that was used to make my owl, rescued from a waste tip and sold to pay for food?
Perhaps the video will have the same impact on a wider audience.

Wash and Squash

Hurray---our carton recycling bank has arrived (thank you, Jonas, at Babergh D.C.) and looms large at the back of recycling area.
No artistic pictures though. The said bank does look a trifle tired, as if it's had a very long journey along wet, muddy Suffolk lanes to get to us. But never mind. We like re-use nearly as much as re-cycle!

Aluminium Cans

This is our sturdy can crusher.
The wall mounted one didn't last very long! The lousy summer has meant that it has not been used too much this year. Also the pub that saves their cans for us was closed for some time, while the building was repaired.

So this time as we only had a small load of sorted, crushed cans we took them to Whip Street Motors and received £80 for our recycling fund. In the past, Pearsons would collect large loads of aluminium cans from us.
Our can crusher came from Home Recycling. I understand that it had to be imported from America. That was two years ago. Perhaps they are made in the UK now. If you remember to put a bin liner in the base, the cans can be crushed and bagged in one go.

I haven't tried crushing steel cans yet, but I seem to remember that the information implied that you could if you wanted to. OK if you can get people to wash out their cans first!